To think processed and pre cooked food is way too common in this country?

[HotPotLove]

Before you all start yelling at me, I know that there are of course millions of households that eat a healthy diet, cook from scratch all the time, carefully choose ingredients etc etc. But my feeling as a foreigner (have been living in the UK for almost a decade though) is that ultra processed food, pre cooked and ready meals etc are very much normalised here and part of most people every day life. It’s pretty obvious just by looking at the supermaket aisles really.
Curious to know if people are generally trying to stay away from these and make healthier choices or whether it is generally so embedded into our lives that we are not even noticing?
Second disclaimer is that I am not pointing any fingers, infact I often buy these myself but what makes me think about this is that I would have never bought these types of meals when living back in my own country (also less available than here overall)

Yeah but diet culture also has Brits obsessed with protein. Its telling that you can buy protein Mars bars, weetabix etc as though that's a good substitute for good diet.

No. You warm some oil and some garlic, throw a handful of fresh cherry tomatoes (cut in halves) and make them cook slowly whilst the pasta cooks. When the pasta is ready you throw it in the pan with the tomatoes and add a tiny bit of pasta water if needed for creaminess. Add some fresh basil and a bit of greated parmesan if you like it and yoi have the most delicious meal ever. This is what people in Italy eat all the time, takes 10 minutes, it s healthy, cheap and puts a smile on your face.

The French aren’t meat obsessed? Have you tried being a vegetarian in France?!

Pasta with a few tomatoes is just a bowl of carbs with a bit of veg. Not a balanced meal.

I was just thinking this- there seem to have been a lot lately!

I think it’s rude.

I agree OP - in fact one of the items in my 'pros' column for the UK is the quality and variety of ready meals! I am an absolute sucker for CB's paella, and spanish chicken and potatoes, not to mention the tikka masala and butter chicken. We tend to have these where we would have once had take out.

When I went back to NZ for several months, to nurse me Mum, I would have killed for access to those, there really aren't similar items readily available. It was very noticeable for me - although I hasten to add I wasn't in a main centre, so maybe that made a difference. There were the pastas and sauces, and the pizzas, but really, that was it. Apart from a truly dire curry offering that I still shudder at the memory of. . .

I don’t really buy any pre-cooked ready meal type stuff. I mean we do buy things like crackers, oatcakes, custard in tins, occasional packet of crisps or jar of pasta sauce. I’m not always growing my own tomatoes and making my own sauce (though sometimes!).

Generally, we make and eat proper food. Pasta with fresh veg. Roasts with potatoes and veg. Soups and stews. Salads. Meats and vegetables in wraps or flatbreads in various sorts. Noodles in brothy soups or stir fried. Curries (made from scratch) and rice.

I don’t know how other families eat. But they definitely don’t form the bulk of what we eat. I do, however, suspect it’s going to be very class based. There is a reason convenience foods are targeted at certain population groups more than others - lack of cooking space, equipment, social norms, food culture, cost, etc.

I agree with UPF issue, although sometimes I fall down this trap, especially as I have a child with suspected AFRID. I’m not sure what the problem with precooked food is. Today we’re having chicken pie but I know I’m going to be short on energy so I pre cooked the filling yesterday while I was making dinner, I think this is fine hut being honest the puff pastry is shop bought. I often make twice the amount of something and freeze it for a later date.

It’s not “rude” to say that this country has an issue with ultra processed foods, bad eating habits and obesity… it’s a fact. Why do you have to take it as an insult?

By pre cooked I mean ready meals made by the supermarket

It might be nice but it doesn’t sound at all like a contender for the title of “The Most Delicious Meal Ever”.

There’s a difference between me finding something rude and taking it as an insult. I never said I was insulted.
But I just think these types of post are rude. And I’m not just talking about yours. This is at least the third one I’ve seen in a couple of weeks. Making out like these other countries are so much better than us Brits who rely on ready meals. Just doesn’t come across very nice.

@MrsSkylerWhite , it really does not. It can be made very cheaply and quite quickly.

You are correct.

We eat shite in this country as a whole, only beaten by the USA. But we are headed that way too.

Just look at the isles on the supermarket, one for biscuits, one for crisps, one for fizzy drinks, one for shite cereal.

A lot of families barely cook proper food and even when they do it might be full of simple carbs and meat with veg as an afterthought.

Only got to look at the rise and rise of diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions and dementia since the 1970's.

It's really a battle to stay on the right path.

Not to mention the rise in the number of takeaways. There aren't more takeaways because the population is exploding, the same number of people are just eating more and more takeaways.

The same with crisps, when they first came out it was ready salted and a handful of other flavours. The crisp companies need to increase their profits every year and they do it by us eating more each year.

Rant over.

Because you never had it done properly. And I just meant in terms of what you can easily cook in 10 mins when you are time and budget poor on a week night. Certainly not comparing this with a restaurant meal. Why is it so hard to get?

But this could well go back to Italy in comparison simply being behind the times. According to wiki

“Although Italy has one of the lowest adult obesity rates among OECD countries, it has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in Europe. According to survey data from the World Health Organization from 2015 to 2017, 21% of children in Italy are overweight or obese, which is the highest rate of childhood obesity in Europe.”

so a problem coming down the track, that has taken longer to take hold, whilst in the uk we are closer to coming out of this problem with new generations of less obese children.

First, you have to define what you mean by 'cooking from scratch'.
Do you always make your own bread, or pastry, for example?
I remember this conversation years ago, someone telling me they never ate anything preprepared, etc, never had any tins in their house etc.
When I was a working mother, I considered it good if I managed to have homemade dinners sometimes during the week. And a homemade dinner or dessert may not have been on the same day.
I now do a lot of batch cooking, so I can freeze portions and get out of the freezer as I need.
That said, I do remember a colleague claiming that putting a 'ready meal' in the microwave, was the same as cooking from scratch!!!!

I’ve found it does 🤷‍♀️ cheap tomatoes usually lack depth of flavour.
Each to their own.

We live in north-east USA and, while we have multiple fast-food restaurants, ready-meals in the supermarket are almost zero. It's just not a thing. There is a tiny tiny fridge with a terrible selection (I suppose they used to be called TV dinners, and I've NEVER seen anyone buy any) but there is really nothing like the long aisles in the UK of every brand of ready meals from supermarket own brand, their 'finest' ranges, to Charlie Bigham's versions. You have to cook from scratch here, and I really miss an M&S moussaka and those minted green veg in a pot when you can't be bothered to cook...

How do you know what I’ve eaten? The point is that it’s hardly the most delicious food ever. Nice yes especially if you’re in Italy with good local in season tomatoes but even then “the most delicious meal ever?” I don’t think so.

Each to their own.

Not when I make it, it doesn’t. Tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, herbs and 20-30 minutes on the stove is all I need.

And yes as others have pointed out, Italy isn’t going to be that far behind so I wouldn’t be too smug about it. It’s an increasing problem for many countries.

Personally, not keen on that method.

There is an issue in this Country, with some people not having the faintest idea how to cook properly. The Government has a lot to answer for as well, regarding the way UPF's have been allowed to become the norm, for a large part of the population. Their ridiculous 'attempts' to address, what they know to be a real issue, such as the sugar tax, is just barely tinkering around the edges. The whole culture around food, would need to change.

You can slow cook a delicious tomato sauce over hours but you can knock up a decent one pretty quickly. Tinned plum tomatoes blended up with hand blender, chuck in a few cupboard bits if you have them rough chopped olives / or roasted peppers/ sun dried tomatoes then decent pinch of dried Italian herbs or fresh if you’ve got them. Add to a hot pan with fried garlic and onions. Up to temperature then pop your protien in to simmer browned meatballs/ mince normally in my house leave to simmer. Cook some pasta chuck it in the pan with other stuff. Takes about 30 minutes. If you can do it earlier and leave it on low heat then it’ll be even nicer.